Needing a win to advance to Homestead, Chase Elliott leads opening NASCAR practice at Phoenix

Chase Elliott opened a must-win weekend by leading Friday practice for the Can-Am 500 on Friday at Phoenix Raceway.

The 21-year-old posted the quickest lap of the session on his fifth and final run and went to the top of the scoring pylon with a 26.207-second lap around the 1-mile Arizona short track. That was good for an average speed of 137 mph.

At seventh in the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series championship standings and 49 points behind Brad Keselowski for the final championship race spot based on points, Elliott must win his way in or hope that literally everyone ahead of him suffers a problem during the first stage of Sunday’s race. Even then, Elliott would need run top 10 all day and score points in each stage. That makes the goal obvious for the No. 24 team and its second-generation driver: win.

"Our task at hand is pretty simple: We have to win the race to move on next week. Everybody in here knows that," Elliott said. "We know that and we are going to try to attack the weekend as best we can.

"Hopefully, give ourselves a chance to do that Sunday afternoon and see what happens. That is pretty straightforward what we have to do with the situation we are in now. It’s not the most ideal situation, but if you were able to pull it off, it would be a lot of momentum moving into next week. We will give it our best shot and see what happens."

Elliott nearly won the first race of the Round of 8 last month at Martinsville Speedway. He was infamously crashed from the top spot by Denny Hamlin with three laps to go, denying him his first Cup Series victory and a Championship 4 berth. Elliott doesn’t like playing what-if games, though. He’s moved on.

"What happened last week or a month ago or the beginning of the season or having an opportunity to win and not, it is nothing you can change now," Elliott said. "I think you just have to understand whatever position that you are in and hope that you learn something from that experience to know that if you are ever in that position again, you can change the outcome.

"I think, sure, there are disappointments that have come along with that and with that learning curve, but I think that you just have to understand that you can’t change it, and you hope you can change the outcome the next time it rolls around if it ever does."

Martin Truex Jr. posted the second fastest time, followed by Denny Hamlin, Kyle Busch, Ryan Blaney, Matt Kenseth, Jamie McMurray, Jimmie Johnson. Joey Logano, Kyle Larson. Hamlin is 19 points behind Brad Keselowski on championship points with Blaney another three points behind Hamlin.

Each of those drivers could advance on points, while Elliott and Jimmie Johnson (-51 points) face must-win scenarios.

Read more: http://autoweek.com/article/nascar/needing-win-advance-homestead-chase-elliott-leads-opening-nascar-practice-phoenix#ixzz4y4woWd78